Case Two: "The Doll House"
This is the second case in the Ghost Hunt Series. A family is dealing with a house with strange noises and occurrences. Events such as shaking furniture, banging on the walls, and doors opening and closing on their own plague the residents. Playing with the possibility that a spirit is behind these incidents, the Morishita family hire the SPR to investigate the cause. Summary In the middle of July, Shibuya Psychic Research was called by Noriko Morishita to investigate their house. They also invited Takegawa and Ayako to help with the case. Mai believes it’s a poltergeist caused by a human, citing her knowledge from the previous case. However, Naru debunks this, reminding her that it’s more common with adolescent girls and none of the residents meet this criterion, making it unlikely. However, he’ll still consider it a possibility. Mai accompanies Noriko to bring her niece Ayami some lunch. However, there’s a sudden shift in her expression and Ayami mysteriously rejects the food. Naru conducts his poltergeist test with the residents, using a glass vase. After the test, everyone waits for results at base. Noriko’s sister-in-law, Kana, bursts through the door and leads them to Ayami’s room. They find the furniture and rug in disarray. At first, Ayako believes the culprit was Ayami. However, Monk and Naru confirm that superhuman strength would have been needed to move everything. Noriko’s sudden scream draws everyone to the living room, where everything had been flipped upside down. Naru observes that the spirit’s reaction to outsiders was quick and volatile for the first day, making it powerful and angry. He calls Ayami’s room and the living off limits. They decided that Ayami should sleep in Noriko’s room until the investigation ends. First Cleansing Attempt Ayako performs a cleansing in Ayami’s room and is confident that she got the job done. However, in the evening Kana almost gets burned when flames start shooting out of the stove in the kitchen. Monk steps in with a fire extinguisher and puts it out. Mai sees the silhouette of a child peering kitchen window from the outside. When Naru checks, they find no one there. Everyone goes to find Ayami and Noriko asks if she was outside. The little girl claims she was inside the entire time. When Noriko asks if she’s telling the truth, Ayami gets frightened and shouts that it wasn’t her fault. Banging and loud noises ring out in response to Ayami’s voice and a bookcase falls on top of Noriko. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt. Back at base, Naru and Monk bounce ideas off each other. Naru believes this is Ayami’s doing. Suddenly, Lin reports the temperature dropping in Ayami’s room. Loud rustling and banging occur again, and Naru concludes that something inhuman is responsible. Minnie The next day, Mai and Noriko watch over Ayami. Noriko explains that while Ayami is usually outgoing, she’s gotten quiet ever since her father got remarried to Kana a few weeks ago. When Kana brings in some snacks for her daughter-in-law, Mai notices Ayami’s behavior. The little girl refuses to talk or even look at Kana. Frustrated, Kana leaves the room. When Noriko reaches for a snack, Ayami slaps it out of her hand and says that they’re no good. She explains that her doll Minnie told her Kana was a witch who’s been trying to poison everyone. The scene cuts to Mai dreaming about waking up in the guest room. She sees Naru in the doorway, telling her Ayami is in danger. Mai demands for more details, but her dream ends. Mai tells Naru about Ayami talking with Minnie. Noriko presents the doll and informs them that Ayami’s father gave it to her when they moved into the current house. She also says that her niece’s behavior changed after receiving it. Ayami barges in and demands for her doll back. When Naru confronts her about talking with Minnie, she doesn’t answer and takes her doll instead. While Ayami was asleep, Mai and Noriko take Minnie. They sit the doll on Ayami’s bed to observe it from the base. When they look back at the camera, they find the doll face down on the bed. In disbelief, they watch Minnie being slowly dragged by a mysterious force. The doll’s head turned upwards, snapped off the body, rolled on the floor and into the camera lens. When Monk runs to the room, he finds the doll right where they left it. The next day Mai is about to enter a room to find Ayami, when she hears a mysterious voice talking to the girl. When she walks in and asks who she was speaking with, Ayami says that she was talking with Minnie and some other friends the doll brought. Apparently by the time Mai came in, they had already left. Second Cleansing Attempt Back at base, Monk stands by his belief that the haunting is caused by the doll. He attempts to affect the spirit by reciting some mantras. Ayako watches over Ayami as she slept while everyone else watches Monk via surveillance cameras. Suddenly, Noriko’s scream is heard from the hallway. They find her lying on the floor with a dislocated ankle. When they look, they find the handprint of a child wrapped around her ankle. Later, Naru questions Ayami about Minnie. However, the little girl ignores his questions and keeps demanding for her doll back. Naru finally snaps. He yells for Ayami to tell him the truth, causing her to cry. While Mai scolds Naru for making Ayami upset, Ayami gives in. Minnie started talking to her when they moved into their new home. She was threatened by Minnie to keep quiet and to not be nice to anyone else unless she wanted to get hurt. When she forgot to keep her promise, Minnie would mess up her room and break things. This was also when Minnie started inviting her “friends”, children around the same age as Ayami. After Ayami’s confession, Noriko and Kana find a warning message from Minnie written on the wall in the hallway. Naru knows that because Ayami betrayed Minnie’s trust, she is now a target. He then orders Mai to be with Ayami at all times. Minnie’s Wrath The next day, Noriko and Mai spend time playing with Ayami in the garden. Ayako was assigned to clean the message off the wall while Monk attempts to purify the doll via fire. It’s also revealed that Kana got fed up with the hauntings and left the house. Mai accompanies the young girl to go pick some flowers for Noriko. While Ayami was picking a flower, her hands mysteriously get stuck. Mai quickly digs them out, but sees that nothing was there to trap Ayami. Frightened, she runs off to the back of the yard. Noriko shouts for Mai to get her because of the large pond located there. Ayami trips into the pond and starts drowning. Luckily, Mai was able to save her. Meanwhile, Monk finds that Minnie is still intact, even after burning her. Noriko decides to move Ayami and herself out of the house. Naru informs her that some poltergeists will follow the person their haunting if they change places. Despite this, he reassures that they’ll be fine because of his research on the house’s history. Naru explains that many families have lived in the house before the Morishitas. Every child who came into the house around the ages of 7 to 10 have died from accidents or illness while residing there. But no cases of the hauntings following a family somewhere have occurred. Naru calls in Masako and John to assist with the case. When they walk inside, Masako senses a prominent level of disturbance in the place. This causes her to feel ill, so Mai and John escort her to base. Upon seeing Naru, Masako dramatically collapse into his arms, much to Mai’s annoyance. The spirit medium describes how the house is filled with the trapped ghosts of tormented children. She tells how they’re crying out for their mothers and wanting to leave. Masako faints and everybody rushes for a place to let her rest. Third Cleansing Attempt Naru and Noriko observe as John offers a prayer of protection for Ayami. Monk bursts into the room, saying that the doll has disappeared. Around 2 AM in the morning, the sounds of banging and tortured moaning of children fill the house. Ayako rushes in, saying she found Minnie underneath the bed covers were Ayami was sleeping. Father Brown performs his own exorcism on the doll. He succeeds in cleansing the spirit, but reports that the ghost still exists. They burn the doll a second time so that it won’t be used as a vessel for possession again. This time, it burns to ashes. Monk believes that the spirits of children are lonely, so they befriend the younger residents of the house to trap them. However, Naru states if that were the case, they would have trapped someone older like Noriko to act as a mother figure. Instead, the house has been trying to get rid of the adults. Later, Naru gives Noriko and Ayami a warding charm so they can relocate to a hotel safely. As a secondary precaution, they decided to send John and Ayako with them. Masako reports the charm is working and the spirits don’t notice them leaving. Monk proceeds to perform an exorcism in Ayami’s room. While everyone else watches, they notice a temperature drop in the room. However, they hear knocking sounds in the living room, where the temperature is dropping more dramatically. When Monk goes into the living room, multiple spirits start swarming around him. Monk continues his mantras and Mai notices that the spirits are in pain because of it. Then they see an apparition of a woman behind Takegawa, calling out for someone called “Tomiko”. Despite Naru’s warnings, Monk can’t see the woman. Mai rushes to the living room and finds that she can’t see the woman either. Then, she feels the apparition phase through her. Suddenly, Mai starts getting strangled by the spirits. Monk wards it off and saves her. As they exit the room, a hole in the floor opens up and reveals an old well. Tomiko Masako senses the woman’s spirit inside the well. She fees the woman drawing children’s spirits to her, pretending to be their mother. The ringleader of the spirits is named Yuki Tachibana, and was the spirit who pretended to be Minnie. Despite her actions, her and the rest of the children just want to be free from the pain and sadness. Masako identifies “Tomiko” as the mother’s child. The mother’s spirit is trapping the children while she looks for her real daughter. Naru leaves to take care of something with little explanation. In the meantime, Ayako tries to do an exorcism with Mai accompanying her. During Ayako’s chants, they hear the footsteps of someone running in the house. Mai is then dragged by the ankle towards the well. Lin runs in and tries to grab her, but misses as Mai falls in. Mai finds herself in another dream, where she’s inside a traditional Japanese home. Staring out to the yard, she sees a little girl playing with a ball. She witness the child being whisked away by a dangerous man. The girl’s mother runs ahead, shouting for her daughter Tomiko to come back. She screams in agony, realizing her daughter’s gone. Mai turns and sees the grieving woman attempting to throw herself into the well. Mai shouts for her to stop, only to be held back by Naru. He solemnly shakes his head as they both watch the woman fall in. When Mai wakes up, she sees that she at the bottom of the well. Lin drops in a helps her out. As Mai is being patched up by Ayako, she retells her dream about the little girl being kidnapped and the mother killing herself. Mai claims it was a vision, but Ayako and Lin are a bit skeptical because she has no experiences as a medium. However, Lin sees a lot of parallels with the case and the dream. As Mai lays down on the couch to close her eyes, she dreams about Naru again. She asks if they can save Ayami. Naru assures her that the girl will be fine. Mai wakes up to see that the real Naru has returned. He reveals his plan to solve the case. Final Cleansing Attempt Naru instructs Ayako to write as many talismans as she can and have everyone else place them throughout the house. That way a barrier will be erected and it’ll prevent spirits from leaving the house. With that done, Naru plans to give the mother a substitute for her daughter. That way, the mother will be satisfied and can move on. Either that or everyone leaves and let the mother’s spirit linger. However, if the substitute doesn’t satisfy the spirit then everyone is at risk of being trapped. Naru gets fed up with everyone’s hesitation and criticizes them for not thinking objectively. He and Lin leave the room, leaving everyone else to think about what to do. Masako believes that Naru wouldn’t have suggested this if there was no chance of success. She chooses to believe in Naru, which sways everyone go through with it. As they place talismans all over the residence, Naru reveals more details about his plan. He orders the north-east corner to be left open. This area, called the demon gate, is the easiest direction for spirits to pass. The plan is for Ayako and Monk to be near this area of the house, so that when the spirits head towards them they’ll be able to scatter them. John is assigned to do the same but in the living room. Naru plans to decrease the amount of spirits in the house to draw out the mother’s spirit. Naru, Mai, and Masako sit in the living and watch John perform his prayers. Masako clutches Mai’s arm in distress. She explains that it seems Naru plans to exorcise. As a spirit medium who views spirits the same as humans, an exorcism is the equivalent of killing someone to Masako. She wishes Naru wouldn’t do something like this in front of her. John’s prayers drive the children’s spirits to escape the living room, and succeeds in drawing the woman out of the well. Masako pleads for the woman to let go of the children, but it won’t listen and pushes John back into a wall. Naru approaches the spirit and holds up a carved plaque of wood. He claims that Tomiko is here and demands she takes her daughter and release the other children. He throws the plaque into the air and it transforms into an apparition of Tomiko. The mother and daughter are reunited. As they glow in a warm light, they and the spirits of the children are cleansed. They move on and the house becomes safe again. They inform Noriko that the case is closed and they pack up to leave. Conclusion When all the equipment was stored in the van, Mai asks about the thing Naru gave to the mother’s spirit. He explains that it was a hitogata: the original form of a straw effigy doll. Carving it in the likeliness of the person takes technique and power for it to work effectively. When done right, it can be used as a spiritual substitute for someone. The successful link between the doll and the person is so close that any damage done to the doll will be inflicted on the person. Naru explains that he used the hitogata to make it seem that the mother got her daughter back. Naru had gone to research Tomiko’s birthday and day of passing to make a hitogata, explaining his earlier absence. While doing this, he found more information about the ghosts’ identity. The mother’s name was Oshima Hiro who had one child: Tomiko. The child had disappeared, and her body was found floating the house’s pond after six months. After Oshima Hiro’s death, her house was demolished and the current house was rebuilt in its place. As Naru gets in the car, Monk explains that the only way Naru could make a successful hitogata is if he was a professional omnyoji. As Monk and Ayako marvel at Naru’s skills, Mai says farewell to Ayami. She promises that if she ever needs help she’ll be on her way. Category:Cases